


Love on the N7 Line

by ajackdaw



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 19:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2479031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajackdaw/pseuds/ajackdaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Shepard, university student by day and London bus driver by night, works the night shift for the N7 bus route. It was all going just fine until a man--a very attractive man at that--became a regular.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love on the N7 Line

The bus was quiet and empty as the clock neared midnight in London, the crowds winding down to a slow trickle of people moving about the dark streets.

Shepard began to zone out, falling in to the familiar motions of driving around the nearly empty streets of outer London along his route. He rolled by bus shelters and signs, spinning the wheel between the calluses on his fingers with an ease born from constant practice.

A lone figure underneath the nearest stand caught his attention. Their arm was stuck out into the street, black leather gloves reflecting the yellow light of the street light hanging over the glass-and-metal frame of the bus stop.

Shepard rolled to a slow stop, the tires of the bus squealing loudly in the still air against the rain slick pavement.

He thumbed the button that opened the door and admitted the man into the bus.

The man stumbled in, his foot catching on the higher level of the bus’s floor in an act devoid of balance and Shepard steeled himself for dealing with a drunkard. He had had more than a few drunk men and women stumble onto his bus late at night without a clue where they were going or the necessary change for a ride. Kicking them off the bus required a level of will and patience that Shepard often found lacking.

"Ah, sorry. Guess I'm more tired than I thought,” the man said in a voice lacking the tell-tale accent found in Londoners. The words seemed to rattle through the man’s chest, coming out in a throaty pur that perked Shepard’s ears up in interest. "One way to Castlebar Road, please."

"Three quid," Shepard rattled off, punching in the desired destination into the scratched screen. The ticket machine give a short rattle before spitting out the piece of paper.

"Here you go." Black leather fingers pinched three gold coins together, holding them out for Shepard to take.

Shepard finally looked at the man as he reached for the payment. His fingers went slack and the gold coins slipped from his hand onto the floor of the cab.

The man was beautiful.

His eyes were the first thing Shepard noticed. Their bright amber color stood out against the pallor of the man's skin that was lightened from either the late hour or a result of the man’s own natural coloring. A firm jaw covered in a thin layer of stubble cradled the softest pair of lips Shepard had ever seen. He wet his own in response to the sudden surge of want that spread through him. Thick dark hair was pushed back from the man’s face by finger trails and hair gel, the ends curling slightly against the back of the man's neck and ears.

As he gapped, the man nervously ran leather clad fingers through his hair, further ruffling the black mess.

"Is everything alright?"

The words, again voiced in that throaty tone that Shepard was quickly becoming addicted to, shocked him back to reality.

"Ah-," He stuck his arm down underneath his seat to see if he could reached the dropped coins, his ears burning with an embarrassed flush he hadn't thought himself capable of. "Shit."

His grasping was useless, the coins too far from his reach and he resigned himself to finding them when his shift ended.

Straightening, his arm wacked against the ticket machine with a solid crack and he felt his cheeks beginning to burn in response. Jesus, he was a mess.

He flicked his eyes over to the man and froze at the sight of the small smile tugging up the corners of his plush mouth. His own mouth quirked in an answering, self-depreciating smile. Unconsciously, his hand crept up the back of his neck and rubbed over his buzzed hair in embarrassment before he forced it down.

"You can go ahead. I'll just fish them out later."  

The man smiled again and went to sit a few seats behind the cab, tucking his black briefcase against the window before settling in.

Shepard pulled away from the curb and continued to drive, easing through his route and picking up a few more stragglers out late. And if he happened to glimpse back at the strange, attractive man in his mirror, only he knew.

 

* * *

 

The next night, Shepard eased his bus once more to a stop before the man. He gave a quiet laugh when the man made an exaggerated hop onto the bus to avoid stumbling over the change in height. The man replied with a wicked little grin, evidently pleased to share the joke with Shepard.

“No problems this time?” Shepard teased, slightly startled at his own straightforwardness.

“None so far, but let’s not jinx it,” the man said already passing over his coins to Shepard. In response to the man’s actions, Shepard reached for and grabbed the coins with exaggerated care. He slipped them into the drawer with a pleased smile at the man’s throaty chuckle.

The ticket machine spat the ticket out with the same clunk as yesterday and the man tore it free.

“Looks like we made it through just fine this time,” Shepard quipped, the word ‘we’ offering a pleasant warmth down his spine.

“We’ll have to be sure to keep this up.” With that, the man walked to a seat and settled in against the faded blue fabric.

Shepard noted with a small, quiet hum of pleasure, that the man sat one row closer this time.

 

* * *

 

Shepard couldn’t contain the sense of disappointment that spiked in his gut when he saw that the man wasn’t underneath the bus stop the next night. It was silly, just because the man had ridden it twice in a row didn’t mean that he would always be there.

Shepard chided himself for getting his hopes up and focused back on what little traffic was buzzing around his bus. The night crawled by after that while a heavy feeling filled Shepard’s gut and remained firmly in place until well into the morning.

 

* * *

 

When Shepard saw that the stand was again empty of the man’s presence the next day, he resolved himself to the fact that he was never going to see the attractive man again.

His teeth dug into his bottom lip in a vain attempt to contain his disappointment.

“Hey, driver,” the call from one of the few patrons he had picked up caught his attention. He spared a quick glance into his mirror to see a blonde haired man waving lazily from a window seat.

“Yeah?”

“I think that guy is trying to catch the bus.” The blonde jerked his thumb out the window towards a figure Shepard could just barely make out.

Shepard bobbed his head in agreement and offered a quiet thanks to the man before pulling the bus over at the nearest stop. They waited for the straggler to catch up with the vehicle and Shepard’s heart stuttered at who tumbled through the door.

Arriving in a flurry of black cloth, paper, and huffing breath was the strange man.

“It’s you!” And there went his mouth, speaking without his brain’s permission but he couldn’t contain his surprise—and joy—at seeing the man again. He was aware in a distant corner of his mind that he was acting like a teenager with a crush, but the larger part of his mind was too busy celebrating the fact that he saw the man again to care.

The man’s mouth twisted in a funny way as if caught between a smile and a bewildered frown. His thick eyebrows darted down for a fraction of a moment before smoothing out.

“Hey,” the man said, digging out his change. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you waited.”

“It’s no problem,” Shepard breathed out, thankful that the man chose to ignore his earlier statement.

“I thought I had enough time to catch a quick drink before you arrived, but I guess I overshot by a bit,” the man said with a chuckle.

The man carefully counted out the three pounds necessary for his ticket and Shepard felt words blurting out of his throat before he could stop them.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again.” He backtracked quickly, blue eyes darting anywhere but the man’s face. Retreat was not something he was good at, however. “I mean, most people usually don’t ride this late at night and I thought it was just a fluke that you were here twice in a row—not that I’m keeping track or anything, I just noticed since there’s usually no one on the route this late at night and you’re kind of hard not to notice.”

His words picked up speed and towards the end they came out in a mad jumble of syllables stained by his thick accent. He dug his nails into the thick muscles of his thigh in a nervous habit he couldn’t break, the digits mercilessly twisting the black material of his pants.

“I have night classes at the university.” Thankfully the man seemed amused by Shepard’s rush of words rather than turned off and he hadn’t understood the last part if his furrowed brow was anything to go by. “I’ll probably catch this bus every night.”

“Ah,” There was too much emotion packed into that single syllable, the word quaking slightly with hope from the promise of seeing the man again—nightly if he was so lucky.

A muffled snort from behind the cab caught his attention. He flicked his eyes towards the mirror and saw the blonde haired man covering his mouth with a gloved hand. If his slightly trembling shoulders were anything to go, he was barely suppressing laughter underneath the thick cotton of his gloves.

Shepard sent an ineffective glare at the man through the reflective surface. The blonde seemed to sense it because he sent a jaunty wave towards Shepard before turning to the window with a cat-with-the-canary smirk on his features.

Unfortunately, the attractive man—and Shepard really had to think of a better name to call the man, if even only in his head—also noticed the Blonde’s attention. He gave an embarrassed cough and grabbed his ticket, walking by with a small wave to Shepard.

The bus driver kept up a steady stream of expletives in his mind aimed towards the blonde man for the rest of the night, stopping only when the man left the bus with a final, lazy wave to Shepard.

 

* * *

 

Shepard picked the man up nightly from the Queensway bus stop in downtown London and they would share a few words before the man seated himself and they continued the drive in silence. With each night that passed, the man moved closer to the front but never into the seat directly next to Shepard’s small cab with its plastic window.

Shepard didn’t know when exactly the man began to speak to him during the long commute, but he responded to the man’s attempts at conversation with gusto.

They exchanged small talk peppered with animated discussions on the latest football matches and episodes of Top Gear and Shepard found in the man a kindred soul over their shared love of 60’s muscle cars. They moved between topics effortlessly and settled into comfortable silence when neither had anything they wanted to say.

Shepard had never felt so at ease with a near-stranger before but he reveled in their nightly conversations. Although he still didn’t know the man’s name (and by the third week it seemed silly to suddenly ask for it, as if the time had come and gone for such niceties) he found himself looking forward to the time spent with the man in the late hours of the day.

He learned, quite by accident, that the man spoke French when he came onboard with a cellphone tucked between his shoulder and ear as he dug for change in his briefcase.

Shepard nearly drove the bus into an incoming car when he heard the rough voice of the man drawn out in the lilting syllables of French. The ensuing honk was more than enough chastisement and sent his ears aflame though the soft chuckle from behind the cab from the bus’ lone occupant more than made up for it.

Four weeks into their exchange, the night sky opened up and poured down rain in unrelenting sheets bolstered by a howling wind that shook the trees lining the road.

Shepard took extra care when stopping in front of the man, wary of the puddles that would send waves of water onto pedestrians if he wasn’t careful.

The man all but crowded the door before it swung open, slipping in as quickly as possible into the dry interior of the city bus. His dark hair was plastered to his face, rivulets of water working their way down his face and onto his soaked coat. The blue cotton material was several shades darker than usual and excess water dripped onto the floor, quickly forming a puddle underneath the man’s shoes.

“Can you believe this?” the man asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to the rain that continued to beat against the outside world.

Shepard let out a hum of agreement, his eyes roving over the man while he dug through soaked pockets for change. The denim material of his pants clung to his legs, defining the thick muscles of the man’s limbs and Shepard suddenly wanted desperately to see if they clung just as tightly to the man’s rear.

His cheeks heated up at the thought and a sliver of guilt mixed with want wormed its way into his chest. He didn’t even know the man’s name but he was infatuated with him nonetheless.

“Shit.”

The explicative caused Shepard's eyes to snap back to the man’s face. The other man was dragging a hand through his water-logged hair in apparent frustration, a pinched look coming to his eyes. His other hand held out a conglomeration of silver coins in defeat. “How far can I go on a pound seventy?”

The answer, conditioned from countless similar questions, popped into Shepard’s mind immediately and was on the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it back. A moment of indecision clawed at his mind but a quick glance to the man’s eyes (furrowed under thick brows but still so amazingly _bright_ ) pulled a different answer from his lips.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Startled, the man’s gaze shot up from the coins in his hand to Shepard’s blue eyes. The bus driver could see the desire to accept his offer warring with an inner honorable streak. The honor won out.

“I couldn’t do that. It’s not fair.” He held out his coins for Shepard to take. “I’ll just walk from wherever this will take me.”

“No really, don’t worry about it,” Shepard pressed again and hastened to add: “What kind of person would I be if I made you walk outside in this? I mean, you don’t even have an umbrella.”

The man worried his bottom lip for a moment and cast a glance through the windshield at the rain beating against the glass. His gaze flickered to Shepard and lingered on his eyes. Shepard gazed back with as much sincerity as he could, secretly desperate for the man to remain on the bus and with Shepard himself.

A strange flush overcame the man’s features during their exchange, the red color brightened by the pallor of his skin that had been further bleached by the frigid weather outside.

Shepard let out an inner cheer when the man pocketed his coins.

“If you’re sure…”

Shepard felt a warm smile cross his feature. “It’s not a problem.”

And it definitely wasn’t a problem when the man remained standing next to Shepard and talked quietly with the bus driver for the duration of his ride.

 

* * *

 

The next night was thankfully rain-free though the high winds remained. When Shepard picked up the man, he surprised him by offering a card instead of coins.

Shepard’s gaze lingered over the green piece of plastic, taking in as much detail as he could as quickly as possible.

The photograph didn’t quite capture the bright hue of the man’s eyes but Shepard quickly moved past that to the name scribbled underneath the picture in neat, block letters:

_KAIDAN ALENKO_

Shepard let a triumphant grin slip through, and gazed up at the man—at Kaidan.

“Upgraded to plastic, I see?”

Kaidan laughed and pocketed the card. “I should have done it a while ago but I only just got around to it.”

Shepard noted with pleasure that the man remained standing next to the cab window even as he pulled the bus back into traffic.

“Didn’t want to come up short again?”

“No.” He saw Kaidan shift out of the corner of his eye. “I never did thank you for that. I nearly drowned just walking from the bus stop to my flat. I can’t imagine how I would have made it from further away.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. These night drives wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Holy shit, did he actually say that? He felt his pulse quicken in fear at his blatant (and clumsy) attempts at flirting. This, he decided with cheeks flaring with heat, was why he couldn’t get a date.

“Are you flirting with me?” The words, said in any other tone would have had Shepard scurrying to rectifying the situation and take back his words, but the strange lilt in the man’s voice gave him pause. He might have been imagining it, but the faint hint of hope in the man’s words sent his heart beating double-time with want and anticipation.

He darted his gaze over to Kaidan and felt his breath catch in his throat at the light blush working its way over the man’s cheeks.

“If you have to ask, I’m clearly out of practice,” _you’ll have to let me practice,_ Shepard almost added but refrained at the last moment. He didn’t want to come off too strongly in case he was reading the situation wrong.

“I suppose you’ll just have to practice, hmm?” The words came out as a purr, the man dragging out the last syllable. Its weight hung in the air between the two, heavy with promise and possibility.

Shepard felt his heart swell with a sudden bout of courage and he grasped at it before it could disappear.

He stuck his hand under the protective window, not minding when the plastic bit into the muscles of his forearm.

“John Shepard.” He said, locking eyes with Kaidan. “I would love to, if you’d let me.”

A slow, sweet smile spread over Kaidan’s full mouth in response to Shepard’s sincere words. The man tugged his leather glove off before grasping John’s hand, his heart trilling at the bare contact.

“Kaidan Alenko.” The sweet smile melted into a teasing one. “But I think you already knew that.”

Shepard blushed at having been caught spying so obviously, but maintained the contact between the two of them. “Well?”

“I think I’d like that very much, John Shepard.”

And Shepard couldn’t contain his brilliant grin at the promise in those words.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how buses work in London. I just based it on the transpo in Leicester so sorry if it's way off. And the N7 line is an actual route in London. I saw a sign for it and had to write this.


End file.
